My wife is a nurse at a hospital that is currently in the middle of a union push. It’s crazy how much effort they are putting in to try and get the vote to fail. Spending money on fliers and suddenly having money to buy the staff lunch all the time. She was told " if we unionize it will be harder for management to help you !" Meanwhile every time she asks management for anything “I’m busy”.
dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Unfortunate that the union fought for them to the bitter end.
johnyreeferseed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
luciferofastora@feddit.org 2 months ago
Unions are awesome.
I’m working in the IT department of a heavily unionised non-IT company. The contracts the union negotiates with that company (and others in the same sector) apply to all employees in those companies, including those who aren’t themselves union members.
I gotta say, pay might be better elsewhere, but I don’t have to fight for a yearly salary increase. I also don’t worry about being sick. I don’t worry about performance, because they’re not allowed to monitor it. I don’t worry about getting everything done in time either. If I’m overworked, I tell my boss and he has to see about reducing my load. Sure, might just be a good boss, but I’m pretty sure it’s also a workplace culture resulting from knowing we can’t be fired without good reason, and poor performance isn’t one (and might also land you in trouble for monitoring performance).
Many of my coworkers have been there for 20+ years, through ups and downs and management changes and structural changes and all. It’s a good, reliable employer, and a solid union helps keep it that way.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Union benefits shouldn’t be given to non-members.
luciferofastora@feddit.org 2 months ago
Idk, isn’t arranging different employment contracts for employees and non-employees kinda difficult? You’d have to set up a new contract when someone joins or leaves the union.
To be clear, the overarching part the union is responsible for is a framework agreement defining paygrades, holidays and such for all the employees in the sector.
I fudged and conflated the workers’ council with the union, because ultimately, they have similar objectives in protecting workers and my point was to emphasise that good worker representation makes for a stable and pleasant enough working environment.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Let non-members represent themselves during contract negotiations, or be represented by the union if they are a member. The problem with non-members getting the same benefits as members is that there’s no motivation to be a member in the first place, which means the union has less funds and less negotiating power.